Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle energy management device, and more particularly to a vehicle energy management device which performs a management of energy of a hybrid vehicle or a plug-in hybrid vehicle.
Description of the Background Art
An electric vehicle such as a hybrid vehicle or the like provided with an engine and a motor as a power source is equipped with a vehicle energy management device which sets a driving schedule of the engine and the motor so that fuel consumption can be minimized, in accordance with route information to a destination and driving information of a preceding vehicle.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette No. 2010-132241, for example, disclosed is a driving support device for a hybrid vehicle, which estimates a vehicle speed pattern on the basis of route information to a destination and driving information of a preceding vehicle and then sets a driving schedule of an engine and a motor so that fuel consumption needed to get to the destination can be minimized on the basis of consumption energy obtained by calculation from the vehicle speed pattern.
Since the driving support device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette No. 2010-132241 estimates the vehicle speed pattern on the basis of the route information to a destination and the driving information of a preceding vehicle and then sets the driving schedule of an engine and a motor so that the fuel consumption needed to get to the destination can be minimized on the basis of the consumption energy obtained by calculation from the vehicle speed pattern, when the estimated vehicle speed pattern is a pattern producing an engine output (operating point) of poor power generation efficiency, there arises a problem that the fuel consumption needed to get to the destination cannot always be minimized even if only the driving schedule of the engine and the motor is optimized.